He studies me with skepticism. “Didn’t realize you gave a shit about that stuff.”
I don’t, dammit, but I can’t exactly tell him the truth. “Where did Mom go?”
He drops the cigarette and smashes it with his boot. “Don’t know.” His eyebrows pull together, his focus flitting to Emeric and back to me. “Her phone’s shut off. No note. No calls. Not even a Fuck you. Have a nice life.”
Even in her frequent absences, she always kept in touch with Shane.
I rub my arms. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”
“Nah.” He shrugs, stares at the pavement. “She found something better is all.”
Something better than family. In a way, I guess I did, too.
We exchange a suspended look, and in that tiniest sliver of a heartbeat, I see the boy I knew before he enlisted in the Marines. The brother who used to walk me to school, put gum in my hair, and draw penises in my music books. The son who loved his father as much as I did. As we stare at one another, we share a raw moment of loss, for our dad, our mom, and the love we once had for each other.
He blinks, breaking the connection, and grips the back of his neck. “Someone is still paying the bills.”
I wait for Emeric to react, but he stands still and silent like a watchtower, no doubt weighing every spoken word and preparing to expose his relationship with me if Shane does something stupid.
“I won’t leave you homeless.” For now. I send a silent thank you to the man at my side for covering the expenses and making this easier.
“I’m going away for a while.” Shane steps toward us, slowly, arms at his sides, expression sullen. “But I don’t want to lose Dad’s house.”
My head swims. “Where are you going?”
He stops within arm’s reach of Emeric and boldly plucks something from the lapel of Emeric’s jacket.
Tension seeps into Emeric’s posture, his lips flattening in a line. I stop breathing.
Shane holds up one of Schubert’s orange hairs between his pinched fingers.
A smirk twists his lips. “I used to live with a cat. Damn thing shed all over my clothes.” He flicks the hair and levels me with a knowing look. “I miss him.”
Dread swells in the back of my throat, and my skin breaks out in a sickly sweat. He knows. Oh God, he fucking knows.
His gaze touches mine, his tone bitterly soft. “Fuck you.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walks away. “Have a nice life.”
I hold my breath as his dark silhouette crosses the parking lot and melts into the shadows of the street. The road that will take him to the bus stop. To wherever he’s going. Hopefully to a place where he forgets all about me and the man at my side.
Emeric’s sharp whisper jolts me out of my breathless stasis. “Get in the car.”
I stretch my gait, running harder, faster, letting the burn sink deep into my muscles. The digital display on the treadmill reads 8.07 miles. I have two more miles to go, but I might cut it short this morning. It’s Saturday, and I’m anxious to crawl back into bed with Ivory.
I’d still be with her if my internal alarm clock hadn’t woken me. Or maybe it was a nightmare. Awake or asleep, I can’t shake this chronic feeling of dread.
It’s been five days since Shane Westbrook disappeared. He walked out of the parking lot, and poof. Gone. After I put Ivory in her car, I drove the streets, looking for him. Then I turned the hunt over to my PI.
There hasn’t been a sign of him at the house—his or mine, at the bars in Treme, or anywhere in New Orleans.
Of all the ways he could expose my relationship with Ivory, I repeatedly ask myself, Why would he? He has nothing to gain from it—except my retaliation. Why bite the hand that pays his bills? Doing so would only cause him to lose his father’s house, which seemed to be the purpose of his surprise visit. That, and to say goodbye to Ivory.
Good fucking riddance.
The pound of my sneakers paces my breaths as my thoughts race ahead to tonight. The Holiday Chamber Music Celebration will be a sold-out event. Ivory is years ahead of her peers and too damn talented for the concertos she plays.
But I look forward to being there. I want to be at her side tonight and every night after, with an up-close view of every moment she shivers beneath the lights of her dreams.
Midway through my cool down, the doorbell rings. I hit the stop button and grab a towel, my pulse sprinting.
The security gate doesn’t encompass the front entry, so anyone can walk right up to the door from the street. Who the hell would be here at seven in the morning?